


We ain't sure where you stand, you ain't machines and you ain't land

by thought



Series: You don't have to go home in a straight line [3]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Other, meet the parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 04:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8697097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: October 2003: Root is having a lot of feelings, Cole is starting to figure some things out, and Shaw's mother is coming to town.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbetaed, I'm sorry. I wanted to post before I lost momentum, I have basically been a useless exhausted lump after work for the last month.  
> As always, there are chunks of the timeline that haven't been written yet, but the story stands on its own for the most part.

Root is on an airplane. Everything is too hot and when she moves her legs her knees crackle warningly. The recycled air smells like cheap perfume and stale hot chocolate, the kind you get from a gas station machine. Beside her a man is snoring loud and sporadic like something out of a cartoon. Her face and hair feel oily, and she can smell her own sweat faint through her T-shirt, breathes slow and shallow to avoid the damp puff of her own warm breath across her face.

In front of her someone coughs and she flinches away automatically, rolling her head until she can press her face into the plastic of the window frame, the sky outside dark and the vibrations of the engines rattling up through her bones dulling the rest of the noises around her. She'd turned off her implant early into the five hour flight, but if she keeps her good ear pressed against the plane for too long her eyes start to water from staying open and all the muscles in her forehead bunch up until it feels impossible to lower her eyebrows. She lifts her head, lets herself blink until the burning stops, then starts over again.

Her first time on a plane was when she was sixteen. Eight years later she's flown hundreds of times and the memory seems distant and alien-- a high-strung kid striding onto the plane powered by anxiety and fake ID, new leather jacket butter soft and hands shaking only a little bit around the plastic cup of whisky and the cigarette because the business man across the aisle kept frowning at her like she was over-stepping. She'd spent her whole life building shields against those sorts of looks, and at sixteen-years-old with an artificial intelligence waiting for her in Washington and eighty-thousand in her bank account, she was determined that she would no longer be the sort of person who got those looks. The whisky had gone down fast and easy, and the change in pressure had turned the distantly ominous ache that had been lurking in her right ear for the past year into a sudden stabbing pain, like her bones were popping out of place. She'd spent twenty minutes in the tiny bathroom throwing up while the plane bucked and wobbled under her knees.

The Machine had called her on a payphone as soon as she'd landed in DC, and Root had stood just outside the terminal in the icy winter air and clutched the cheap plastic phone to her left ear while she chain smoked the rest of her pack and let the familiar electronic voice talk her down from the anxiety attack that she hadn't realized she was about to have. That had been a week of a lot of firsts. The first time she had been able to put hands on The Machine's servers, and the first time she'd broken in to a government facility, and the last time she'd been able to hear car engines or quiet conversations out of her right ear.

Now, the pain in Root's ear has been replaced by silence, and the whisky by ice water and a handful of Gravol because the less feedback she can get from her physical parts the better. The Machine isn't speaking to her because Root killed an innocent man and got paid to do it and she's not sorry, they have had this argument over and over again and she's still not sorry, she will never be sorry, they will never stop having this argument.

Root doesn't know if The Machine has found a way to inform Sameen about what Root does. Maybe this will be the final push She needs to fully reveal Herself to Sameen. Root has been very careful not to push, but there are only so many mysterious coincidences and unexplained information before Sameen starts demanding answers. She wouldn't guess AI. Cole might, given enough clues. Root has decided she is going to be ok with The Machine connecting with people who aren't her. She could tell early on by the emotions that happened in her head that it was going to be a problem, so she deliberately disconnected herself from those emotions before they had time to infect anything.

*

"This is why I'm her favourite son," Cole says, gently slotting a chip into the motherboard he has spread out on the coffee table. There's a more efficient configuration that he hasn't thought of. Root tells herself it doesn't matter and kicks her heels against the bars on her stool. Shaw had apparently found the stools last week at the ReStore and now they sit, three in a row, against the kitchen counter in their apartment. Their-- Shaw and Cole's. But there are three stools. Root keeps counting them in her head, one two three, one two three, left right, left right, like a metronome underlying her thoughts. She is sitting on the centre stool and if she bends her knees a bit her feet don't even touch the floor. Her socks are soft and green and fluffy and slide across the tile when she walks.

Shaw says, "You're her only son. Her non-son. I have class and we'll see whose the favourite child when I'm a doctor and putting food on the table while you assholes play with computers." This is a lie. They're all comparatively intelligent and the rotting corpse of the .com bubble may have finally stopped twitching but Root knows there are still plenty of opportunities in security and surveillance if you have the right connections and know how to keep your mouth shut.

"It's my car," Root says, three syllables, one two three.

Shaw huffs. "Yes, but if you went to pick her up I think your head would explode, and that's disgusting. Besides, I'm ninety percent sure you faked your driver's licence."

"I don't actually mind, you know," Cole says. "Your mom likes me."

Shaw is cooking something peppery on the stove, and she keeps tapping the spoon against the edge of the pot, the banging erratic and arrhythmic. Root made coffee twenty-six minutes ago but she'd just wanted the familiar ritual and the idea of the coffee, not to actually drink it. For a few minutes the kitchen had been warm and smelled like fresh coffee and she could stare at the bits and pieces of hardware Cole has spread out and her heart had started to slow down, but now the smells from the pot on the stove are dragging her back into the reality of the physical space as a concrete environment instead of allowing it to remain the carefully constructed concept of contentment.

Root pictures Shaw's mother in the kitchen and doesn't want to be part of the image. She wants to see without being present, wishes she could be a part of the scene without affecting it. Root has scene pictures of Shaw's mother. The Machine says there is a eighty-eight percent chance she'll like Root. Shaw tells her there's nothing to be worried about because her mom is just another human and Root is good at people. Root's head says "zero" but her mouth says "Yes, of course."

Root hasn't asked if Shaw has told her mother about her. What is there to tell? Root sweated and coughed her way through a feverish bout of pneumonia in Sameen's bed for most of May. Root had spent most of July in Germany. Root's favourite leather jacket hangs in the front closet but she doesn't pay rent. Root came back to New York and she was going to book a hotel but Shaw had met her at the airport and Root hadn't objected when she'd led her onto the air train and Shaw had carried her backpack all the way from Seventh Avenue Station back to the apartment. She had held Root's wrist the whole way like she didn't trust her not to wander off.

Picking someone up from the airport is a thing you do for guests, but it's a thing you do for family too. But maybe only if you have a car. It's not like Root's trip between airport and apartment was made any faster or easier by Shaw's presence, and she's never done it before. Root has never come straight here before, always letting The Machine book her a hotel or washing up on the Greenfield's front porch like a stray cat. ...Jason's brother's words, not hers, but she's determined to own the imagery. If she's a cat she's the kind that will shred your goddamn arms and face if you touch her.

Shaw's mom is a guest. Family, too, but she doesn't live in the city so it makes sense for Cole to borrow Root's car to go pick her up. She'll have to go get the car and bring it back. She rents a stall in a posh Manhattan apartment building where the building manager thinks she owns a unit. She can go in the morning. She's got a few 'i's to dot and 't's to cross from her last job, and an actual programming contract to work on, and Daizo moved into his very own apartment (better living through illegal hacking) and Daniel told her it's the socially expected thing to stop by.

Root's kind of glad Daniel's not dead in a ditch somewhere. The Machine had incorporated all of his work into her own defences before anyone else had the chance to use it against Her, and he's returned to school and to serving as Root's human norms and morals translator. She's getting better. The higher profile the work she takes on the more important it is to be able to manipulate the people she has to interact with. There's a lot to be said for social engineering. Growing up she never cared to learn how to act like a person, secure in her friendship with Hanna, and later The Machine, and never seeing to value in engaging in the insipid social economy of her classmates or neighbours.

Shaw takes a plate down from the cupboard, then glances over her shoulder at Root, hand on the edge of the door. "Did you eat today?"

"I'm going to bed," Root blurts, dropping down off her stool and skidding a bit in her socks. Shaw shrugs. Root flees into Shaw's bedroom and when she opens the top dresser drawer her own neatly folded T-shirts stare up at her accusingly. She strips down to her underwear and takes a sleeping pill which she immediately regrets. Shaw's pillows smell familiar, and she lies on her back staring at the ceiling until she falls asleep.

*

The Machine is talking to her by the next morning. They've never had a fight that lasted longer than a couple days. Mostly because they're so fucking interdependent, but Root can only think of that in a transhumanist context without wanting to run away and live alone on a island, and right now it feels more like her best friend finally answering the phone. Shaw been to bed and gone again by the time Root wakes up, rumpled blankets and displaced pillows the only evidence of her presence. Root didn't notice. There's a reason she avoids sleeping pills, but at least the foggy, hungover residue keeps her brain from vibrating out of her skull.

Shaw's left her a full metal water bottle on the night stand, and Root sits on the edge of the bed with a blanket over her shoulders and drinks the whole thing. The Machine tells her Cole is the only other person in the apartment, so Root doesn't bother getting dressed before she pads down the hall to the bathroom to shower off the lingering effects of sleep.

Once showered and dressed she trudges into the kitchen under the weight of The Machine's fun facts about the human body's nutritional requirements. She eats an apple and a couple handfuls of dried Cheerios and she's in the middle of a silent battle of wills with a banana when Cole wanders sleepily in to make nice with the coffee maker.

"Are you going to get your car?" he asks.

"Yes," Root says, and takes another bite of her banana. It squishes soft between her teeth, slides along her tongue. For a horrifying moment she thinks she won't be able to swallow it, but she squeezes her eyes shut and forces her body to do what she wants it to. It's not unlike the mindset she'd used the last time she'd been shot. Neither of these experiences was as bad as the afternoon when she was sixteen and first starting on anti-psychotics (her mother having overheard her talking to The Machine on the house phone) and biting into a section of a mandarin orange had suddenly struck her as the exact sensation of biting right through your own tongue.

"Do you want some company?" Cole asks. Root throws out the rest of the banana. "By which I mean, I've never driven an a standard before and I'd kind of like to practice so I don't completely humiliate myself in front of Shaw's mom."

"Yes," says Root, again, and leaves it up to him to interpret the response.

An hour later, squished up against the window of the bus in a low-definition replay of the previous day's plane ride, she regrets her ambiguity. The bus is more crowded than she thinks it should be for ten AM on a Friday, but even over the noisy chatter of the passengers and the rattle of... literally every part of the fucking bus, Cole's question is clear and unmistakable.

"Excuse me?" she says, to buy herself and The Machine time to come up with an answer. Cole, who is sitting on the outside of the seat but casually, legs in the aisle, like he's making sure she has a clear exit if she wants it, repeats himself. "Is the AI self-aware?"

The Machine is buzzing static in her ear so she knows She's listening, but She's not saying anything. 'Good to know all those IFT servers are being put to good use,' Root thinks uncharitably.

"Clarify," Root says. She wonders if The Machine as revealed herself to other people without telling her. Her face feels hot, and every time the bus turns a corner she has to hold on very tightly so she doesn't tip over.

"Shaw told me about all the weird things that have been happening since she met you. I think she was mostly worried that somebody was trying to get at you through her, but she also mentioned times when you knew things you couldn't possibly know. Which was kind of unnerving her, I think."

Root twitches indignantly. "But she knows I would never do anything to hurt her. ...non-consensually."

"You did break into our apartment last year."

"That is absolutely untrue," Root lies. "Slander."

"Anyway, she didn't want to go to the cops, so she asked me to do some digging online."

Root snorts. She can't help it. "You wouldn't find anything."

"Yeah yeah, you're a genius, I haven't forgotten in the fifteen hours since you last reminded me. Anyway, after my spectacular and entirely predictable failure, we started keeping track of all the weird things to see if we could find a pattern."

"Why isn't Sameen having this conversation with me?" Root asks.

Cole shifts uncomfortably. "Because she thinks I'm crazy."

"She's right," Root says, and then The Machine says

"You can tell him."

Root's throat closes up like someone shutting off a valve. She tries to inhale but nothing happens. The bus slides to a stop and the doors hiss open. Root tries to make her body get up, take the few steps that will remove her from the equation.

"You are alright," The Machine tells her. "Breathe." Which is really fucking helpful advice, amazing, why didn't Root think of that?

Cole continues talking, clearly not noticing how Root is frozen and on the verge of crashing right next to him. "I did a class on AI theory last year. And a lot of the older IFT projects were AI based-- I overheard a lot of the developers talking about them when I interned there. They were all scrapped back in the late nineties."

The Machine plays a quick burst of very loud sound in Root's implant and her body's flinch reaction is enough to get her functioning again. "This is a terrible time for this conversation," she says.

"Which means I'm right."

"Which means," Root says, suddenly angry, "that if you want to know so badly you can talk to Her. And apparently She'll be happy to have that conversation."

She turns away then, pressing her forehead against the dirty window and wrapping her arms around herself defensively. A middle-aged woman across the aisle chuckles loudly. "Looks like somebody's in the dog house."

The only reason Root doesn't punch out the window is that it would draw more attention to her and she thinks if one more person looks at her or speaks to her or touches her she's going to explode into very embarrassingly uncontrollable violence. Her hair falls into her face, and the sweet damp shampoo smell and delicate brush across her upper arm and cheek should be happening to someone else. She finds a twist tie in her jeans pocket, probably used to bundle cables at some point, and makes a clumsy ponytail at the base of her neck. It leaves her feeling exposed, but at least she can't see her hair.

"Your stop is next, twenty seconds," The Machine tells her. Cole is very carefully not looking at her. He doesn't do well with angry silences -- if you ask him his childhood was idyllic, but if you ask Shaw there's an older brother out there somewhere that nobody in the family talks about.

When they're getting off the bus the same woman stares openly at Root's implant where it's visible without the curtain of her hair. Root walks off the bus and keeps walking a few yards like a wind-up toy that hasn't wound down yet. The sun in her eyes is bright and painful, and the skin of her arms breaks out in goosebumps. She assumes Cole is behind her, but the rush of the wind over the mic on her implant and the pounding of her own blood in her head drowns out his footsteps.

When she stops it's because The Machine snaps a warning just before she would have stepped out into traffic. Root shoves her hands in her pockets and hunches her shoulders, kicking at the dead leaves on the sidewalk and painfully aware she's acting like a child.

"Look," Cole says, coming up on her left. "I'm sorry if I pushed."

"It's fine," Root says, because it should be. "Check your email when you get back to the apartment. And for fuck's sake don't leave any record of it. Like I said, She's ok with it."

"She as in... the AI?" Cole sounds a little bit in shock, which she supposes is better than sceptical. She's used to people, even those who purported to care about her, thinking she's "crazy". That doesn't mean she likes it.

"We're *definitely* not having this conversation here," Root reiterates. At least on the bus she could keep an eye on the people around them to see if anyone might be listening.

They pass a grimy little cafe, almost empty of people, and Root ducks in to buy the largest coffee she can get even as The Machine is suggesting a calming tea like calming tea is a thing Root has ever consumed in her life. While she's waiting for her coffee she ducks into the tiny bathroom. The lock on the door doesn't work, but she manages to scrub the eye makeup off before anyone accidentally pushes their way in. It doesn't really help, but the back wall of the stall is concrete so she can kick it a few times as hard as she can and no one comes running. She douses her face in cold water because the person in the mirror looks flushed.

Cole hands her the coffee when she comes out, and he doesn't ask any more questions about The Machine. They go down into the parking garage where Root's car lives and it's not until they're half way back to the apartment that Root realizes she never even considered killing Cole to keep The Machine safe.

*

Sameen's mother is casually friendly, nothing like the cooing, hugging, baby-picture-showing caricature that Root had painted in her head. There's a moment when Mrs. Shaw and Cole first come into the apartment where Root's in Shaw's bedroom and can't for the life of her imagine just casually strolling out into the living room and having a conversation. Root had broken down and asked Shaw by text if her mother at least knew that Root existed, so she knows that Shaw's mentioned her to her mom enough that she will recognize Root's name, but Root's not actually sure in what context she's come up. Does Shaw's mother know they're sleeping together? Is that the sort of thing you tell a parent? Root's Texan courtesy screams no, but Shaw and her mom don't seem to act out a lot of the scripts that Root witnessed growing up.

Even after forcing herself out and engaging in fifteen minutes of small talk, Root's still not sure where Shaw's mother thinks Root fits in. When Shaw gets back, finally, Root drags her off into the hallway as soon as her mom goes to take a shower and change out of her travel clothes.

"Sameen, what exactly did you tell your mother about us?" Root demands. Shaw pointedly pries Root's fingers off of her wrist.

"Nothing in specific. She knows you're around."

"But around as what?"

Shaw shrugs a bit. "She never asked. I didn't know what I would say, so it works out."

Root sits down on the bed. "You could have said we're dating," she says, before she loses the nerve.

"Root, you live here," Shaw says. "I think dating might be inaccurate at this point."

Root opens her mouth to say something and a very tiny squeak is all that comes out, air trying to go both ways in her lungs and getting caught in her throat. Shaw frowns, then huffs in annoyance.

"Yes, Root, you live here. All your shit is in my drawers. Cole has actually given you an entire shelf on the sacred computer desk that I'm not allowed to touch. Your asshole friend calls here if he's trying to get a hold of you."

"Oh," Root says.

"You were literally homeless when I met you," Shaw points out. Root bristles.

"I wasn't."

"Ok, ok, no, you had the money to stay where ever you wanted. But functionally you didn't have a permanent place to stay. Or an address, not that I've ever seen you get mail. I know you have at least three fake IDs, because you've used different ones when you get carded at bars, but I don't even know your last name. Which, yeah, I know you don't use that name anymore, but I'd still like to know who I'm looking for if you wind up in the hospital."

Root blinks a few times. Shaw turns away, back toward the door.

"Never mind," she says. "I'm not mad, it's just weird, Root. You have to admit that. And I've heard a lot of horror stories from doctors about people who spend days or weeks in the hospital and nobody comes to see them. Or they die and there's no next-of-kin to contact."

"I'm not planning on dying," Root says dryly.

"Good," Shaw says, like that is a thing she has been legitimately concerned about.

"A last name wouldn't help," Root says after it's clear Shaw's not going to keep speaking. "I've wiped any record of my old name, and I tend to rotate through IDs."

"Because you make all your money off hacking."

"I mean, some of it," Root mutters. Shaw tips her forehead against the door.

"My mom's like ten feet away and gonna be here for the next five days," she says. "I think I know where you make the rest of it, but I don't want you to confirm anything until she's gone."

"I can go," Root says. "While she's here. I can stay with Jason."

"What part of 'you live here' don't you get?" Shaw snaps. "This is a stupid conversation. My mom likes you. I can tell her you're my girlfriend or whatever if it'll make you feel better."

Root doesn't know how to respond. "I don't want you to do something you don't want to do just because of me."

"I don't care," Shaw says, impatient now. "It's fine, I'm cool calling it that if you are."

Root pulls her hands into the sleeves of the oversized hoody she'd stolen from Cole's closet. "Sure," she says. Her voice shakes a little but she's not really sure why.

*

They go out for brunch the next morning because that is what Saturday mornings are for. Root thinks she remembers a time in the winter before Saturday morning brunches, but possibly she's just imagining it. Probably there has never been a time before brunch.

"It's the meal of our people, you should know this," Zoe Morgan had told her the first time they'd been at brunch together. Root had nodded along wisely because if Zoe Morgan said she should know this than clearly she needed to know it. Root is kind of a tiny bit enamoured of Zoe Morgan and her shiny hair and sharp heels and casual confidence. Root had, after checking in with the goddamn committee of people who now have a stake in her personal life (The Machine, Shaw, and Cole, but it feels like she should be scheduling an Outlook meeting) gone on one date with Zoe Morgan. A date during which Zoe Morgan hired her to move a significant amount of money around a few corporate oil accounts, paid her in cash, and then fucked Root's brains out on her expensive black leather sofa. Root didn't ask what a 24-year-old was doing involved in big oil, and she didn't ask if it felt weird to Zoe Morgan to have her entire hand inside Root 90 minutes after handing over thousands of dollars in a large paperclip. Root had gone back to Shaw's apartment a little raw and vulnerable and smelling like expensive perfume. It was a really intense experience that Root thinks she'll probably be ready to have again in about 2006.

All this being said, it's only Shaw, her mother, Root, and Cole squished into the vinyl booths for brunch at the diner six blocks away from the apartment. Root orders a fruit cup and is entirely unsurprised when half of Shaw's hashbrowns and two slices of Cole's toast magically migrate to her plate. When she looks up, Shaw's mom is smiling at all three of them. Shaw's pancakes are a bright unnatural orange, and Root distracts herself watching in fascination as Shaw cheerfully devours forkful after forkful.

"They're pumpkin," Shaw says, using the palm of her hand to push Root's face away. Root bites the tip of her finger in revenge.

"Not even an actual pumpkin is that orange," Root says.

Shaw's mom says, "It's her version of smoking. As a doctor she's going to need to have at least one hypocritical terrible habit."

Shaw licks her lips. "Mmm, chemicals." And then, "You're right, maman, smoking is a *terrible* habit."

Root sticks her tongue out.

"So," Shaw's mom says. "How did you meet these two, Root?"

Root eats a strawberry instead of replying.

"One of Root's best friends was in my classes," Cole says.

"We wanted to get Cole to work on a project," Root says, getting on-track. "And then I met Sameen and we started hanging out." Technically, there is absolutely nothing untrue about this story.

"She needed a place to stay in May," Shaw adds. "And we figured it made more sense for her to just move in instead of one of us having to commute all the time. Do *not* tell any of the family, please, my phone plan can't take it."

Root has to put a finger under her chin to make sure her mouth isn't hanging open. Shaw's mom snorts. "I learned my lesson with Michael. Besides, I think you're safe. Your auntie is leaving her husband."

"I know, believe me," Shaw says. They start talking about their extended family like Shaw declaring Root her... whatever, is no big deal. Root wonders if maybe Shaw's mom didn't understand what Shaw was trying to say. Maybe she had already figured it out months ago. Root eats the rest of her meal on automatic, turning the whole interaction over and over in her head looking for... something.

On their way out of the diner Shaw and Cole run ahead to pick up milk and tea and apples at the Bodega two doors down. Root watches them go with a feeling of impending doom. Shaw's mom finishes at the cash register and strides over to where Root is trying to disappear into the wallpaper. She steps in close, lips pressed together like she's trying to figure Root out.

Root clasps her hands behind her back. She hasn't been this kind of uneasy in a long time.

"Root," Shaw's mom says.

"My intentions are good," Root blurts out. "I love Sameen very much, not that I can tell her that, and I would never do anything to hurt her, or to come between you and her, or her and Cole, for that matter, because I know their relationship is special too. And I don't like animals but I thought maybe she would like a puppy for her birthday, if that's alright, I'm not sure if that's the sort of gift you have to ask permission for."

Shaw's mother holds up a hand. "Root," she says. "All of that is very good to know. Do not buy her a puppy. I was just going to ask you if you can see the sign for the washrooms."

"Oh," Root says, and walks out the door so she can transform into the living embodiment of humiliation in private. The Machine reassures her it wasn't that bad, but she still wants very much to leave the continent until Shaw's mother has gone home.

*

Root spends the afternoon hiding in Shaw's bedroom and doing Cole's grading for him for want of anything better to serve as a believable reason for her absence. Shaw comes in around three and flops across the bed, pushing at the laptop until there's room for her head on Root's stomach. "I made sure my mom got it," she says. "Told her we're partners. I could tell you weren't convinced at brunch that she understood."

"Haha," Root says, weakly. "I think she got it, yes."

Shaw rolls her head enough so that Root can see her arched eyebrow. "What did you do?"

"Absolutely nothing," Root lies, glad Shaw's mother had kept her little outburst between them.

"She really does like you," Shaw tells her. "And I didn't say you were my girlfriend. Just so you know."

Root stares at the ceiling and pets Shaw's hair because she doesn't know what to say and thinking about it too much makes her uncomfortably aware of the space she is existing in. She stops when she finds herself incredibly self-conscious of the placement of her thumb against Shaw's cheek but at an awkward angle, the nail polish chipped noticeably.

After a while of lying quietly together, The Machine speaks to Root. "I would like Sameen to know about me. Michael reacted well."

Root types one handed 'are you sure'

"Yes." The Machine buzzes static for a couple seconds, then continues. "There is a high probability that you will require unexpected hospital services within your lifetime. It would be better if I could tell someone who we trust. You should not be alone."

Root sits up a bit so she can pound the keys with all of the force needed to express her displeasure. 'I AM NEVER ALONE WITH YOU. THERE IS NOTHING I NEED FROM A PHYSICAL PERSON THAT YOU CAN NOT GIVE ME'

The Machine takes a few seconds to respond. Shaw lifts her head, frowning up at Root. Finally, The Machine says, "Physical contact is important for human development and emotional wellbeing. But your needs and responses often contradict human norms. I am sorry. I did not take this into account, and I should have."

Root drops back to the pillow, deflated. "Ok," she says. "Thank you."

Shaw is frowning for real now, head tilted to the side like she might hear the other half of Root's conversation if she listens hard enough.

"Root?"

Root takes a deep breath. "Sameen," she says, turning the laptop to face her and sitting up, tugging at Shaw until she's sitting with her back against Root's chest. "There's someone you should probably meet."


End file.
